Player identity management: choose who you are before a story starts

What changed

The old avatar setting did not meaningfully affect story play. It has been replaced by player identity selection for stories that do not already let creators define selectable player roles.

An identity can include a name, age, gender, appearance, and extra details. The default identity comes from your profile nickname and gender, so you can start quickly without creating anything.

Manage identities in Profile

Go to Profile and open the Identities tab. From there you can add, edit, and delete saved player identities. Use one identity for yourself, another for a detective, another for a student, or any persona that fits a story world.

Each identity is intentionally text-first. The story engine reads the identity as context, so details such as age, gender, appearance, profession, personality notes, boundaries, and background can all help the opening scene react more naturally.

• Name is the display identity shown in the chat sidebar.
• Age is shown as a localized age label, such as Age 30.
• Gender is localized in the UI and is injected as part of the identity context.
• Appearance and details are useful for clothes, physical traits, habits, secrets, or roleplay constraints.

Choose an identity when starting a story

When a story is opened, the start dialog now includes Player identity if the story does not use creator-defined player role selection. Choose Auto to keep the current behavior, or choose a saved identity to bring that persona into the prompt.

The selected identity is injected only once, before the first story response. This makes the start of the story more personal without rewriting the player later.

• Auto means no extra identity prompt is injected.
• Saved identities are available only when you are signed in.
• The selected identity is carried into the story as the player, not as a separate character.

Creator player-role selection has priority

Some creators enable Allow players to choose a role for their stories. In that case, the creator-provided player role choices take priority and the identity picker is hidden from the start dialog.

This keeps creator-authored role design clear. If a story already asks you to choose between roles such as detective, witness, or apprentice, that role system remains the source of truth.

Why identities lock after the story starts

Story memory depends on a stable player identity. After a session begins, the chosen identity is locked for that chat and displayed in the sidebar. Continuing a story will not reread a new identity selection.

This avoids memory conflicts. A long-running story should not suddenly reinterpret the player as a different person halfway through the plot.

Practical ways to use identities

Use one identity for cozy romance, one for mystery investigations, one for fantasy adventures, and one for creator testing. Because identities are reusable, you can compare how different personas change the same opening scene.

For creators and reviewers, this also makes testing easier: start a story as a clearly described player, check whether the first scene respects that context, then adjust the story settings or player identity details.